Shadow defence secretary Vernon Coaker discusses the BAE Systems job cuts announced in Portsmouth and Scotland on Wednesday. The company says almost 1,800 jobs will be lost when Portsmouth shipyard – which is over a century old – closes by the end of 2015, on top of heavy job losses in Glasgow

Ian Jack: Warships have become the last ships that Britain really does. For a country that easily within living memory owned the world's largest merchant fleet, this looks like a savage form of self-harm